The massacre of innocents in Paris by the Islamic State, or Daesh, may have changed forever the internal discourse on the situation of religious minorities. Not just in France, the site of the violence, or in Europe where Christian nations are reaching a political breaking point, but even in the United States where the dormant xenophobia until now reflecting in attitudes towards blacks and Hispanics, is now targeting Muslims- those already in the country, and those presumably on the verge of invading the landmass by the boatload.
The real estate billionaire, Mr. Donald Trump, hitherto known for his acquisitions, his matrimonial issues and his television business game-play reality series, is now a front-runner for the Republican ticket in the US. He is sailing on a platform whose chief plank is to ban Muslims from the country and severely monitor those who came in before he arrived on the scene. Mr. Trump seems to suggest he is saving the Christian nation and its way of life from violent hordes out of Arabia and North Africa. He does not articulate it in so many words, but implicit in his rhetoric, in his frothing at the mouth speeches, are also wilder images.
That is a terrible situation already, even though perhaps Mr. Triumph will eventually not get to reside in the estate called the White House. But there is something eerily familiar in the American debate. Have we not heard those words earlier, or something similar, nearer home? Perhaps, in India? They do haunt us here, and it will be good to reflect on them this Minorities Day on December 18.
Mercifully, Mr. Trump has been finessed in his home country. The current occupant of the White House, the son of a Black African Muslim father and a White Anglo Saxon Protestant mother, has rubbished the speeches as anti-American, as going against the very premise of the US as a haven for refugees, the poor and the persecuted. Mr. Trump’s own Republican Party is deeply embarrassed, leading him to say he does not need the party to enter the Presidential fray. The White Americans, barring the cheering crowds at his rallies, have voiced solidarity with all Muslims, some apologizing for Mr. Trump’s poisonous churlishness.
The most severe indictment of the billionaire protagonist of the white supremacist ideology are American Jews, who normally support an aggressive US position against Arabian countries inimical to the Promised Land of Israel. Prominent American Jews, in speeches, television debates and newspaper reports, have told Mr. Trump that they have heard his argument on Muslims many decades ago. These were almost the exact words that Adolf Hitler, chancellor and eventually dictator of Germany, used against the Jews, including the programme of separate population registries. More than six million Jews were exterminated before the Western Allies and Russia managed to defeat Hitler in a five year long world war.
The Apex court, and also the high courts have not been proactive on issues of justice for religious minorities, whether they seek enhancement of relief and rehabilitation, affirmative action or a place in the state apparatus commensurate with their numbers. And above all, on issues of justice for victims of targeted violence, it’s healing and kindness to victims has been less than adequate.
Religious and ethnic minorities the world over have reason to be worried as to how the Daesh (ISIS) butchery of Christians, Muslims and others, will impact them. The reaction of governments is just one aspect, which includes the reluctance in Europe and elsewhere to take in Muslim refugees from Syria and parts of other neighbouring countries. In Europe there is the additional fear of radicalization or expansion to young Europeans of the ultra-conservative and xenophobic ideology. There have already been warnings of a rise in anti-Semitism and neo Nazism in several parts of Europe, and a growing intolerance of Muslim refugees, which began years ago with the first entrants from Turkey and Algeria and which has now intensified.
The spectre of Daesh (ISIS) has not left India untouched. There are real threats of terrorism in India, and Daesh (ISIS) with its highly public rhetoric on TV, print and social media may possibly be reaching a few young men and women in India. But the official and political response is an over-kill. Stalwarts of the sangh parivar, in overdrive since the election campaign of 2014 and only slightly dazed by the defeats in Delhi and Bihar, have picked on what happened in Paris and Syria to redouble their campaign to stigmatise the Indian Muslim. Every one of the usual suspects of the sangh parivar, and several more, have been on TV and public platforms trying to convince the general public of their thesis of an imminent danger of Islam and Muslims swamping and overwhelming the beloved and holy motherland. The release now of the religious component of the 2011 national census has added fuel to this. The sudden revival of the Constitution’s directive principles on the protection of the cow and the need for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) have become the weapons of choice in a new political campaign against Muslims.
The rhetoric has already drawn blood, with one person, father of an air force corporal, lynched in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, another killed by forcing high pressure air into his stomach, and many seriously injured in attacks after they were branded as cattle rustlers or beef butchers. Some states have made this witch-hunt legal, by making beef illegal. The toll rises by the day, and is at least five on the eve of Minority Rights day.
The Supreme Court is seemingly not interested in adjudicating these issues in a definitive manner, repeatedly sending mixed signals. One honourable Justice caustically asked the Union Government why it is not coming up with a Common Civil Code, while another bench said the protagonists or those opposing such issues need to go to the government for suitable legislation instead of seeking mandates from courts of law. The Apex court, and also the high courts have not been proactive on issues of justice for religious minorities, whether they seek enhancement of relief and rehabilitation, affirmative action or a place in the state apparatus commensurate with their numbers. And above all, on issues of justice for victims of targeted violence, it’s healing touch and compassionate jurisprudence to victims and survivors, has been less than adequate.
But a radicalised political group and its followers, in uniform in the form of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or in the scores of organizations it has spawned covering villages, tribals, education and the youth, which has been roused against Muslims will not be satisfied with just targeting that one community. The leaders of the Sangh have written, and said, quite openly that they see Christians and communists as much as an enemy, as the Muslims. It is no secret too, that it is the RSS’ supremacist ideology that dictates the central government’s thrust and functioning, today.
Christians, hierarchy or Laity, essentially live in a cocoon, or rather several cocoons of denominations, ethnicities and regional identities, when it comes to responses to issues of human rights, civil liberties or citizenship. Many tend to believe the myths or exaggerations spouted by the Sangh against Muslims, and in states such as Kerala, the valley of Kashmir and regions in Assam or Bengal, there are several friction points between Christians and Muslims. Church leaders have expressed their apprehensions of a rise in the Muslim population in some areas with no less pungency than the most acerbic of the Sangh veterans.
A false belief that Christians will remain untouched, or essentially safe, even in an environment that is becoming increasingly hostile towards Muslims, has prevented the community — which really has no national political leadership of its own – from dispassionately and comprehensively analyzing the public sphere, including constitutional derivatives such as the courts and the administration, for erosion of their rights.
One does not want to repeat the statistics of the one-year and more of Mr. Narendra Modi’s premiership here[1], or the record of the states where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power. The Congress, the Janata, the Dravida parties and several offshoots of the Lohia ideology have not shown too much of a better record when it comes to removing structural hurdles to ensure the rights of minorities.
Several of the worst laws eroding minority rights were passed by Congress governments, and not removed when the others came to power. The issue of Scheduled Caste status and the repeal of the anti-constitutional Part 3 of Article 341, and several of the laws against conversion are a case in point. In fact, many commentators have pointed out in the past that several other parts of the Constitution and legislation have a majoritarian bias, but have managed to remain on the statute books, unchallenged nor repealed. But since the Constitution and the Republic that it founded is the reference point available today, its further erosion remains a major threat to religious minorities in the country.
What the BJP-National Democratic alliance government has done is to remove the cataract that blinkered the minorities who had continued to hope that their low key movements for the removal of the anti conversion laws or the restoration of the rights to Dalit Muslims and Christians would succeed sooner rather than later.
A false belief that Christians will remain untouched, or essentially safe, even in an environment that is becoming increasingly hostile towards Muslims, has prevented the community — which really has no national political leadership of its own – from dispassionately and comprehensively analyzing the public sphere, including constitutional derivatives such as the courts and the administration, for erosion of their rights.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who has often come to the rescue of this majoritarian dispensation has made this clear during the beate on Constitution Day in Parliament. On the Dalit Christians and Muslims issue where writs in the Supreme Court have been kept hanging for more than a decade, the Congress government (UPA I and II) had whiled away the time and not given the Court the affidavit it was supposed to –despite a spate of adjournments and directives — on whether it supported the demand for abrogation of Article 341, part 3, or not. The Congress played a typical safe and double game: it just did not want to take a decision but also did not want to annoy the minorities. Congress president. Sonia Gandhi had made it clear that Christians and Muslims could not expect her to do anything because of the opposition from both the upper castes as well as the non Christian and non Muslim Dalits within the party who had been fed the lie that their rights would be taken away and apportioned away from Christians and Muslims (Dalits).
Incidentally, this was the same argument Mr. Modi used repeatedly in his campaign in Bihar, though it did not win him too many seats. Party officials have made it clear they have no intention of giving any scheduled caste privileges to Dalit Christians and Muslims. The government may also say this, in writing, to the Supreme Court one of these days. Patently, the minorities will have to review the situation and see how they re-invent their movement.
The long struggle to get the anti conversion laws which are operational in six states removed, shows no sign of moving forward. It needs be remembered that not all these laws were brought about by the BJP, or its predecessor, the Jana Sang. The last enactment, in Himachal Pradesh, was by a Congress government and its overzealous chief minister, Vir Bhadra Singh, who now finds himself in very hot water because of charges of corruption levied against him. Mr. Modi’s ministers have again spelled out in some detail that the government not only supports such laws, but is also actively considering bringing about a national law against conversions, though issues of Constitutionality and jurisdiction, remain. They are, as for some other laws, waiting till they get an absolute majority in the Rajya Sabha, or till they can persuade some of the more vulnerable Opposition groups to support the move.
In another structural issue related to furthering minority rights, the experience of the Christians of Kandhamal district in Orissa is an example of justice so slow in delivery, as to have become meaningless. Fr. Ajay Singh, a human rights activist who has been raising the issue since the large scale and targeted violence engulfed the district in August 2008, reports that in the eight years since the Kandhamal anti-Christian violence, the very fact that 72% of the complaints have not yet been even registered by the police itself speaks volumes. It exposes the mindset of the state machinery. “The role of prosecutors and judges in the trial courts also reveal little commitment to sense of justice. Less than six of the accused have been, so far, convicted. The failure of the criminal justice system to convict grave crimes like murders and rapes, and the meagre compensation given for the substantive damages suffered has furthered embolden the perpetrators.” “Today, Hinduvta forces are doubly emboldened because of the victory of Mr. Modi. The RSS shakhas are sprouting up. The terrified and insecure Christian community has started accepting this as a ‘fait accompli’, though we had petitioned everyone all the way upto the President of India when a delegation called on him in Rashtrapati Bhavan”, says Fr Ajay. The government of India seems un-interested in persuading the state government to reopen cases of murder, and arson. And this is understandable. The main accused and suspects in every case are members of the Sangh Parivar.
Tea parties for select Christians this year will not undo the hurt of declaring Christmas as Good Governance day last year. Surely the prime minister and his ministers, and the ambitious middlemen, must know that.
To come back to “Life after Trump”. Whether he wins or loses, the moot question is if the international community will in future pursue with any vigour the issues of hate crimes committed in his wake. Many wonder if the terrorist acts of Daesh will be evoked to explain, if not to justify, the response of xenophobes and of instances of targeted violence against Muslims.
And, overwhelmed by the situation in the Middle East and the refugee crisis in Europe, will the international human rights infrastructure of the United Nations, including the Special Rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights council in Geneva, ever again be able to use its moral clout to magnify the voice of victims in countries such as those of South Asia? For activists working on issues of “Freedom of Religion and Belief” as guaranteed under the UN charter, the end of 2015 is a time of great concern, and deep worry, specially so in India where religious minorities number nearly 200 million.
(The author is a journalist, occasional documentary film maker and social activist)